Where would you like to go?

Yesterday I asked the class if they would like for me to take them to McDonalds. Of course, the resounding answer was "YESSSSSSS!"....but it wasn't that easy. I told them that I would rather cook at home for them instead and they had to persuade me to change my mind. They did a great job of coming up with good solid reasons why I should take them including: not having to do dishes or clean up, not having to take so much time, and some even offered to pay their own way!
After introducing the concept of persuasion, we completed our first writing assignment for this type of writing. The assignment was to write a letter to our mom/dad/grandparents/etc. persuading them to take us somewhere. Here are a couple examples:

"Dear Mom,

Please take me to Hawii! You want to go to. Its warm there very warm. There's palm trees and a beach. You and me and shelli and Bri and Nee can go. I'll clean my room for a whole Month I promise. We girls could take the trail blazer. Pretty please with Hawii on top. The boys can go mudding. I'll wash the dogs.

Love,

KW"

Written and Illustrated by: KW

"Dear Mom,

Can I go to Thai land? I haven't been there for a while. I would pay for the tickets. Then I would give you the change if we got any change. I would get you a ipod touch that you really want. I would feed the cats every day. I would clean my room. I would try to keep Dakota away from your stuff. That's what I would do if we were going to Thai land.

Love,

CK"

Written and Illustrated by CK

Great job! Ok -- I'm definitely convinced and I'd love to tag along to Hawaii or Thailand with you!

Helping Others

Last week, NB spent the whole week on a church trip to Mexico. He helped the team finish one house and build another one. He brought pictures and explained each one to our class. The students and I both enjoyed hearing about his trip and seeing the pictures. I hope that somehow the important lesson of helping those less fortunate than us was communicated to the other students. NB, thanks for sharing your awesome experience with our class!

"Amigos por siempre" ="Friends Forever"

This was a gift given to NB by a friend he made while working there.

Today we...

Today we wrote journal entries, learned more about telling time, listened to a funny story about a dog that acted like a person, played "Stop the Clock" in the computer lab, and lots more. Here are some pictures and student work from our day:

Prompt: Invent a new sandwich and describe it.
"I would invent a new sandwich that tastes like cherries. It will have mints and cherries in it. Every time you take a bite it will sqirt cherry juice in your mouth. It will make you smarter in school and make you get 100s on everything.

Written and Illustrated by: KS

Prompt: Write about your favorite toy.

"My favorite toy is my Ipoud I Like it becase it is fun to lessin to and you get to lessin to iny kind you whant but best of all i Like my ipoud.

Written and Illustrated by: MR

Here we are hard at work trying to master this tricky time telling thing!

Thing #4

I have been a fan of google docs for quite some time. It is such a convenient way to share and access documents and pictures. From wedding guest lists, to shopping lists for classroom things, to assignments I prepare during evenings or weekends, I use it all the time -- the possibilities are endless! I'd love to be able to post document and share with families for extension activities that correlate with what we are currently learning. Also, as some other teachers have mentioned, it could be a convenient way to share important documents such as school calendars, announcements, permission slips, etc. I <3 google!

What is the best thing about a rainy day?

The best thing about a rainy day is you could invite a freind over. you could do a puzzle. you could paint a picker. The last thig of all you can play in THE RAIN!!!

Written and Illustrated by: LB

Great Job! LB wrote this this morning for a morning work journal entry. I love her creative artwork and her use of exclamation marks! The speech bubble reads "This is so great!" I am going to attempt to add more student work for your viewing pleasure.

While we've had lots of dreary and rainy days lately today is NOT one of them! We are all very thankful for the beautiful sunshine and outside PE and recess today!

The Blob

Student: "Do we get to check our blob today?" and that is why I love teaching...kids are way funny. From now on I shall refer to our blog only as blob. :)

In celebration of starting our new math unit on telling time HERE are a bunch of fun games to help your student practice at home. Even though we've only played the first installment of the game, I can already tell that "Stop the Clock" is going to be a class favorite.

At the risk of our reading being left out feel free to check out this pronoun game or this one

(don't mind the alternate spelling of some words)!

 Don't forget about the Book Fair that is going on this week! Our class will be visiting tomorrow. Also, it will be open Tuesday and Thursday evening for you to come with your family!

 

Fraction Fun

As promised, here are a few pictures of the fun we've been having with fractions! First, we did a pizza project where they used toppings to make different fractions. Friday, we wrapped up our fraction unit by doing an activity involving M&Ms and the different fractions that were made from the colors. We all had a great time learning all about fractions!

Today we...

Today in math we made fractions with M&Ms. We estimated how many M&Ms were in our bag. We opened and counted our candy. We sorted them by color. We did addition problems with our candy. We filled in a graph to match our M&Ms. Last, we got to eat our M&Ms. It was fun. We love math! We like having M&Ms for breakfast....or having M&Ms for dessert after our breakfast. Maybe you can do the same thing at home with your family this weekend!

Ms. McKeown says she will post pictures of our fraction projects soon (she also helped us type our message).

Sincerely,
Ms. McKeown's class

Goodbye Mrs. Koltun!

Wishing you the happiest retirement ever!

WE WILL MISS YOU!

Reader's Theater

During first week of March our class practiced and performed 3 plays ("Mr. Wolf and the Three Pigs" - "Twice as Nice" - "All By Myself"). They practiced all week long and did a wonderful job reading with expression, fluency, and proper phrasing. The students really enjoy when we have a "Reader's Theater" week and I am always so proud of what great jobs they do! We definitely have some wonderful little actors and actresses!

Thing #3

 There are so many wonderful examples of how teachers are using web 2.0 tools to teach and enrich their students' learning. After looking at several, I found Kathy Cassidy's blog. She is a 1st grade teacher in Moose Jaw, Canada. I love how each student can each make student entries where they can share their own writing. The feedback they recieve is particularly encouraging and I would love to be able to incorporate something similiar on my classroom blog in the future. The use of video and the amount of student work showcased is inspiring and, again, something I'd love to learn how to do!

Another blog that I find entertaining and interesting is Regurgitated Alpha Bits  who shares candidly about the frustrating/inspiring/funny/challenging. This blog is written anonymously by a female teacher aspects that come along with a job in the education world. She describes her blog as "Musings of a teacher who loves her students, hates her job, and mourns the fact that they used to be the same thing." I enjoy her style of writing and can identify with much of what she writes about -- although, I am far from "hating my job" in fact, I quite like it! :)
UPDATE: I have recently found Look at my happy rainbow! - It is a blog written by a male kindergarten teacher. I have loved reading about his "sprouts" and all the funny stories that surround teaching a room full of 5 year-olds. I encourage you to check it out - it will make you smile. Guaranteed.

Celebrating Dr. Seuss!

 Today the students and I had a wonderful time celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday. We read 5 of his books, learned about his life, talked about why he became an author, made our own Cat in the Hat hat, played some fun rhyming games online, watched part of Horton Hears a Who during recess, and made this story using the "Seussville StoryMaker" from seussville.com. Overall, we had a very exciting day! We hope you enjoy our story...now go make your own! Find this fun story building program and much much more right here!

Click below to enlarge and read our story! :)